Memorial Day, 2007

Mom and I went to the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City today. My dad was buried there thirty years ago after sudden death at forty seven, and his sister Rosalie was laid to rest in 1941 after a motorcycle accident at eighteen. We put flowers down for Dad and then decided to try and find Rosalie's grave. But after wandering around in Immaculate Conception based purely on memories of a visit in 1974 or so, we didn't have any luck. So we went to the office for help, and a patient woman actually found the records, even though they preceded computer documentation and we weren't sure about Rosalie's last name. But I knew exactly where to go once we had the info, and made a beeline for the grave of an aunt I never knew but whose memory brought tears to my father's eyes late in his life. He always said how beautiful she was. And how kind. How he would sit and watch as she sat at her vanity table and brushed her hair and talked to him. He was adamant that I never ride on a motorcycle, but he was dead by the time I hopped on Ian Boyd's green Suzuki at Grant High School in 1977. Fortunately Ian, my first love and lifelong friend, was either more careful or more lucky than Rosalie's guy. But I still felt as if I'd somehow betrayed my father. This entry is in memory of my dad and the sister he loved so much.

Fallen Tree, Injured House

We had a wonderfully wild windstorm in the San Fernando Valley earlier this month - the kind that yanks off the roof and sweeps the house out of Kansas. Turns out the storm was sufficiently violent to uproot some majestic old neighborhood trees. I spotted this fallen soldier on Riverside Drive at the red barn house that always fascinated me as a kid. Well, at least the house survived.

Make Theatre. Take Action.

That's my niece in her role as Sister Helen Prejean in her high school production of Dead Man Walking from a photo that appeared on Coast Weekend Magazine (linked) about the creative and emotional challenges involved in performing the play at her high school. When Katie told me she'd gotten the lead role, I remember feeling proud and excited, but also concerned that the intensity of the role was a lot to take on for a sensitive kid her age. Then I did a bit of research and learned that the production was part of the nationwide Dead Man Walking School Theatre Project, founded by actor-playwright Tim Robbins and Sister Helen Prejean, intended to provoke discussion and debate of both sides of the capital punishment issue. What a great way to create dialogue among young people. It really is true citizenry in the best possible sense and with the best possible example. I'm proud to say that Katie rose beautifully to the challenge on stage as well as thoughtfully behind the scenes. She went above and beyond even what I, the proud aunt, might have expected. http://coastweekend.com/main.asp?SectionID=2&SubSectionID=1018&ArticleID=39725&TM=10484.54

Here's Tim Robbins' and Sister Prejean's "Invitation to Young Americans" from the http://dmwplay.org/ website:

"When the film Dead Man Walking hit theatres across the U.S., we were amazed at the way it provoked discussion and debate on the death penalty. To this day it continues to provoke deeper reflection on one of the key moral issues of our day. In order to widen the circle of public discourse on the death penalty, we are offering you and other young Americans the stage play of Tim Robbins’ Dead Man Walking to be performed in colleges and universities across America. We welcome you as collaborators with us in this creative project.

"Make no mistake about it. What we are doing here by delving into the issue of capital punishment is true citizenry. Americans who debate and question government policies and law do so because they love this nation and want to see it live up to its true potential. To engage in vigorous examination of issues that affect us is to live up to the noble ideas enshrined in our Constitution. Dig into the issue. Make theatre. Take action. Becoming an active, engaged citizen and participating in discourse around the big issues of our day is exhilarating. Be a player, not just a spectator.We hope that you will join us in this ambitious enterprise."

Katie and her Aunt Cathy

I really love this photo of me and my niece taken last summer when she and my sister Carolyn had a good long visit at the family home in Sherman Oaks. Even though it's blurry, it radiates love and joy, which is how I always feel when I'm around her or when she's on my mind. Katie turned sweet sixteen on the first day of spring this year. And we were very proud to fly up to Astoria in February when she starred in her high school production of "Dead Man Walking" as Sister Helen Prejean. Mwah!

Not Penny's Boat

What's the likelihood that a drowning guy would think to grab a Sharpie marker and scrawl a note on his palm as neck-high water rises to ensure his end at sea? And did Charlie meet his fate because of Desmond's premonitions or because his spiritually transformed character lead inevitably to martyrdom? Maybe the writers simply wedged themselves into a corner.

In the ABC series Lost, a guy definitely would grab a Sharpie pen at the end of his life if it meant sending a message might somehow save his friends and his love, Claire, even if he could not live to see it. And that's why we love it. Even if we're sorry to see Charlie go.

And who was in the coffin in the South Los Angeles funeral parlor in Jack's future world? I'm guessing it was Locke, the deceased identified as a suicide in Jack's newspaper. The foreshadowing of Locke's capacity to kill himself occurs in the skull pit before Walt intervenes. But what could cause such despair in a future world for Locke? If the island is the key that unlocks the reason we exist, and if self is defined through a continuity of consciousness (per the real-life philosopher's theories), then expulsion from the island would destroy not just Locke's raison d'etre but the literal flow of his being. His entire identity/self would quite literally break down in an off-the-island future. We know that he could not kill Jack in order to save the island, therefore he could not save himself.

Or something like that.

Anyone who doesn't watch Lost and who reads this post will probably think it's got to be incredibly dark. My niece would agree with you on that. But if you take the considerable amount of time it would require to watch the past three seasons in their entirety, you might understand why we're all hooked. This is a show that gets you thinking. And it's the only one I watch. As everyone knows, I'm a book worm, not a TV person. Ergo: it must be one damned good show!

Helping the Public Sort Out Fact from Propaganda

So you're not sure yet whether the government lied to us about the war? Please check this out. On Wednesday, April 25 at 9 p.m. on PBS, the Bill Moyers Journal series premiered with "Buying the War," a 90-minute documentary exploring the role of the press in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq. Please set some time aside to click on the link and watch this essential piece of reporting if you haven't seen it already. John Walcott, Jonathan Landay and Warren Strobel of Knight Ridder newspapers are my new media heroes!

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/btw/watch.html

And what do I have to say about it? Well for one thing, this excellent documentary is just a beginning. A dear childhood friend of mine called today, and when the conversation came around to the war in Iraq, she said she wasn't sure the government had lied to us. Since I know she's a stubborn Iowa conservative, I wasn't aghast to hear that she's still not sure they lied. I bluntly asserted, "They lied. There's no question. Stop watching Fox News and get on the Internet for the truth." So here's a start. Click and watch. It's your first step towards some truth.

And by the way, I frankly do not understand people who claim they aren't political. "I'm not political," they say. As if they're proud of it! Don't they get it? Our democracy is based on an informed citizenry. If you're not informed, then you're not participating in our democracy. And without participation, we have no democracy. Get it? Worse yet, if you think you are informed, but what's in your head is a pack of lies (thanks to the mainstream media, and not just Fox News), what then? Huh? What then! Do you have the guts to dig for the truth? To view things from another perspective? To admit that you may have been mislead? Huh?

Nah! But God how I wish you'd surprise me.

Out of the Newsroom and Into the News

Okay, this is an amazing and inspiring story by a syndicated columnist who was ready to get out of the newsroom and into the news! Does that sound like anyone you know? And here I was thinking my hit-the-road and get-on-a-train ideas were merely the stuff of fantasy, best only to suppress or sublimate somehow from the safety of a Sherman Oaks writing table. But she did it, thereby leaving a once-desired, now-stifling life behind (including a boss who "showed personal behaviors that were bullying and deceitful" - sound familiar?) for a life traveling by train with a duffel bag stuffed to the max, collecting bylines in cities like Vienna and Budapest and, above all, interacting with people and seeing the world.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0521/p09s01-coop.html?page=1

This is what they mean by follow your passion and the resources will follow. Hm, travel plus writing? My passion. And is it some kind of coincidence that old friends in Europe have been in touch, offering me places to stay? Don't be surprised if you start receiving postcards from faraway lands.

New Beginnings, New Moon in Taurus

Those of you who know me know that I'm a devotee of the practice of astrology, but you may not know it all started when I was twelve. So how did that happen. Well, remember the little scrolls at the supermarket checkout counters back in the early 70's? Some of you won't. But that's where I first learned about astrology and about my sign, Aquarius. Back then my mom would take me shopping, and if I wasn't tagging along asking her to explain why she wouldn't buy Welch's grape juice - please, pretty please pretty please, but she was boycotting it in support of Cesar Chavez and the farmworkers struggle in the California Central Valley - then I was lurking near the checkout counter surreptitiously unrolling the tiny scroll and reading about who I was and what was going to happen. I liked being identified with the words humanitarian, independent, and rebellious. So my awareness of astrology and taking a stand politically began in the aisles of Ralph's on the corner of Coldwater Canyon and Magnolia in Sherman Oaks. It seems fitting, then, to choose astrology as the first topic for my first blog, and on the day of the new moon in Taurus, when I am at at crossroads in my professional life. The following quote from Lisa Miller, posting on http://astrotribe.tribe.net/thread/8c60ac6a-a031-419b-ac55-fdf6879d585e, expresses perfectly what's happening for me at this juncture. Maybe someone else who reads this will feel the same. Thank you, Lisa.

"Taurus needs to enjoy its work. So if you make your living doing what you love, you are way ahead of the game. But if you spend your time at a job you despise because you can't figure out how to get paid to do what you love, this is the New Moon to work on changing that reality. This basically comes down to building self-confidence, believing in the value of your talent and then doing the work. Creativity isn't about genius; it is really about giving from the heart. Anything, when done well (even sidewalk sweeping) can be satisfying and creative work."